What links baton twirling, hovering, bridge, lifesaving and tiddlywinks? It turns out that they are all sports. In Cambridge, lifesaving, chess and Frisbee are all half blue sports, with tiddlywinks just trailing at quarter blue status. How did this happen? How are they sports? If bridge is a sport, why not other card games like snap and poker? If motorsports are allowed, is flying a sport, and is the pilot of an EasyJet aircraft taking passengers on their holiday to Saint Tropez next in line for Sports Personality? Where do we draw the line?

One would think sports need to have three things: physical exertion, competition and skill. The Oxford English Dictionary seems to think pretty much the same: “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment”. Yet it turns out there are many definitions, each one broader than the next. The word sport comes from the Old French word ‘desport’, meaning ‘leisure’. In English, the oldest definition of sport was made around 1300, classing it as “anything humans find amusing or entertaining”.

Sporting bodies use different definitions. Sport England uses the definition in the 1993 Council of Europe’s European Sports Charter. The International Olympic Committee has formed the Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations in order to class which activities it deems to be sport, which does include bridge and chess. The most cited definition comes from SportAccord, the union that includes all of the world’s largest sports federations. SportAccord claims that sport can be primarily physical, mental, motorised or animal-supported, that it should have an element of competition, and that it shouldn’t rely on any specifically integrated element of “luck”, nor pose an undue risk to the health and safety of its participants, or be harmful to a living creature.

Cambridge has its own way of classing what a sport is or at least what sporting activities deserve the recognition of the student body: the blues system. A quick glance at the list of which sports are blues sports will bring up the obvious: football, rugby, hockey, tennis, and rowing. It’s in the half blue section that there are some surprise finds: try lifesaving, chess and Frisbee. Quarter blue status has also been awarded to tiddlywinks. Cambridge is a place famous for prioritising intellectual activity over any other, but can it really go so far as to call these activities sports and give them a blues status? How competitive can lifesaving really be; surely everyone would want everyone else to win to prevent, well, death?

It turns out there is much more to it than that. Sam Brennan, former tournament secretary of the Cambridge University Chess Club, explains, “Chess was the first sport to be awarded half blue status. In those days it was the most watched of the Varsity matches.” Is this just a Cambridge thing? Certainly not. “The UK is one of the only countries in the world not to define chess as a sport. The Olympic Committee says it’s a mind sport.” If the IOC, the God of sporting bodies, does it, why shouldn’t Cambridge? People have trouble with accepting mind sports because of the lack of physical exertion but there is no doubt that there is competition and skill involved. A readjustment of perspective is all that is needed.

The lack of physical exertion is a theme which continues with tiddlywinks. But Nicky Collins, a committee member of the Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club, argues that this isn’t an issue: “To be a world-class sports player requires multiple things: commitment, talent and desire to win. These are, of course, all qualities which a tiddlywinker must possess. Matches are won or lost not on the physical fitness of the players, but on the strategy and skill they display.” Does it bear any resemblance to any other sport? “I like to think of winks as a game with the tactical and strategic qualities of chess combined with the technical skill of basketball.” And what is this legendary quarter blue status that no other sport seems to possess? “The quarter blue status is unique to tiddlywinks and something which is over 50 years old.” There’s even quarter blue stash! Nicky, however, still has yet to receive his invitation from the Hawks Club.

There are some Cambridge sports that do require physical exertion but are still considered a bit odd. Ultimate Frisbee springs to mind. Yu Wei Chua, a member of the Cambridge Ultimate Club, explains the problem of public perception: “I think people who claim Ultimate cannot be classed as a sport just haven’t seen how it’s really played yet. They have the perception that it’s a beach sport, or that it can’t be a competitive game because you just throw it around.” Perhaps that’s just it: You need to understand the sport before you start to judge it, and most people don’t often give the sport that chance.

In terms of Frisbee, Yu Wei explains, “I find the level of physical fitness required on par with any ‘actual sport’ – sprinting is the only way to successfully get the disc so the amount of running in a fifty-minute-long game definitely fulfils the physical component of a sport. Throwing a disc well isn’t easy either, and takes months of practice to get it right, and there’s more than one kind of throw.”

Ok, agreed: Ultimate Frisbee requires a normal amount of sporting physicality, and chess has the tactics and strategy to make up for that particular deficiency. Yet motorsports? Surely all you have to do is sit down and drive? Ryan Jenkinson, who is involved in Cambridge motorsport, explains why this is so far off the mark. “When I started in first year, I was getting bashed about an incredible amount. The bruises I had from first year Varsity were brutal, my left leg and back were purple, this was because I couldn’t hold myself in place with the g-forces and was being bashed around in the seat. At the top level the physicality cannot be disputed even if it doesn’t involve ‘moving’. Formula One, World Endurance Championship and World Rally Championship drivers are some of the fittest athletes in the world. The cars they are driving are extremely powerful and the g-forces involved means only the very fittest can compete. Also, the level of technicality and sophistication aimed at analysing performance to increase speed means Motorsport is as much a thinking man’s game as it is a test of physical endurance.”

The final elephant in room remains lifesaving. Emma Hildyard, president of the Cambridge Lifesaving Club, explains the basics of the sport: “It’s composed of learning first aid, but then applying it to simulated circuits both in and out of the pool. Most of our time is spent in the pool simulating saving people from made-up incidents.” When people tell her it’s not a sport, what’s her reply? “You try sprinting 50 metres swimming, tumble-turn, swim 17 metres underwater without breathing, pick up a water-filled manikin from the pool floor, and tow it the remaining 33 metres, whilst not dunking its head underwater or strangling it. Then come back to me and tell me that lifesaving is not a sport.”

Our perception of sport is influenced, more than anything else, by what the public deems sport-worthy. Sometimes, the inherent nature of the sport is trivial when compared to the effect the sport’s history, popularity and coverage has on our judgement of it. Could we truly be sure that football would enjoy the same status within sport were it not for the fact that it dominates the back pages and that it’s played in every school in the country? What would happen if we played competitive tiddlywinks at our secondary schools?

So maybe think twice before you judge what is and isn’t a sport. There will always be someone willing to fight and justify what they do. To be fair, wouldn’t you do the same? And sometimes they may have a point.